The Study of All Existence: Toward Global Symbiosis

Abstract

There is a long history of stories about events that threaten the end of the world or about life after a major catastrophe. The Naxi Annals of Creation and the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic tell of floods that all but end life on Earth. H.G. Well’s 1897 story, War of the Worlds, is about Martians invading Earth, but who themselves are killed by a terrestrial epidemic. The 1954 Japanese film, ゴジラ (Godzilla), is about a marine reptile mutated by nuclear radiation that attacks humans. We love to be horrified by such fantasies, but these stories also grab our attention because there is a strong element of truth in them: Human life is precarious.